Steadier Footing
by Tokoloshe Monster
Summary: This a story of how Peeta and Katniss would've fallen in love if a different Everdeen was sent off to the Games – and there was only one Victor. But it's okay to love someone even when you're hurting, and sometimes all you can do is lean on someone else.
1. Part 1

**A/N: This was written for The Ice Within. You, my dear, are a lovely person. I love you so much, as you already know. Even though I'm posting this really late, I hope you enjoyed your birthday. **

**I wrote this in December. But I'm only getting around to posting it now; I'm so smooth. 8D**

**This is a three-shot, by the way. I hope you enjoy. **

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><p><strong>Steadier Footing <strong>

**.**

**Part 1 **

It starts with a cough.

Just a small wheeze, really. Nothing unusual for someone living in District 12. Everyone gets sick from time to time, and it doesn't worry Katniss Everdeen too much. She still hunts and goes about her life, putting food on the table in the only way she knows how.

But of course, the cough progresses. It becomes a runny nose and rattling breath. Soon enough, it feels as though she's getting punched at her ribs and organs from the inside out. A week later, each lungful of air hurts like shattered glass resting in her lungs.

So she does what all poor(er) District 12 people do. She gets help from her mother, which means herbal tea and bed rest.

It's not like they have anything better to give Katniss, anyway. There's only so much that can be done on a budget.

The cough persists.

In the mornings when Katniss opens her eyes, she finds blood smeared on her hand, stained on her pillow and resting on her chin. The taste of copper is heavy in her mouth.

Naturally, it worries her. If she died, who would feed Prim and her mother?

Katniss can only grit her teeth and deal with it. She has, admittedly, been closer to death before. She tells herself that if she could survive so much, a silly chest-ailment wouldn't kill her. She's not afraid of death itself, but more of what would happen in her absence. She makes Gale promise to help her family out of she dies.

"You're not going to die," he hisses. "You're stronger than this."

Katniss rolls her eyes – sighing would hurt her chest too much.

"Reaping," she chokes out.

Gale knows her well enough to understand. "Yeah, I'll take care of Prim. Although she's more nervous about you at this point than she is about her first reaping." Gale's eyes are filled with worry.

Katniss nods and lies back down on the hard mattress, trying – and failing – to get comfortable.

Three days pass. Her breathing becomes easier.

It's time for the reaping. Katniss is formally excused to prevent spreading of her disease. The fact that she spattered some blood on one of the Peacekeeper's shoes, and the other one was a customer of hers probably did help her case just a bit.

Of course, Katniss wants to be at the reaping. It's Prim's first, and will most definitely be the one Prim will be most nervous for. Katniss frets over the fact that she's not there to tell Prim that the odds are definitely in her favour, and that she can't shoot her sister a reassuring smile the moment before the Reaping Ball is spun. She doesn't even consider that Prim might actually get reaped. The chances of that happening are so slim that it's hardly a concern.

She sighs, ignoring the faint taste of copper in her mouth and falls into a sort of peaceful doze. For a brief half-an-hour, the Games doesn't occupy her mind.

When the sound of the door opening awakens her, she feels slightly better – then she sees her mother's expression and knows that someone is about to die.

"Gale?" She rasps, her heart sinking in her chest, tearing and peeling everything inside of her as it falls.

Mrs. Everdeen shakes her head. The realisation dawns on Katniss; there's only one person that would make her mother look so worn, so lost. So much like a destroyed mother.

Prim.

Katniss can only suck in her breath with shock – it feels as though crying would break her chest. Her mother sits down at their kitchen table and sobs into her hands. Katniss gets onto her feet uneasily, trying her best to hobble to where her mother is. Katniss just barely makes it to her seat, trembling with exhaustion.

She tries to comfort her mother, she really does. But this isn't a situation where comfort couldn't possibly exist. Prim was about to die.

Deaddeaddead.

Sweet, innocent Primrose. Gone.

Katniss listens to her mother sobbing. If Katniss's mind had a sound right now, it would be what she was hearing.

But Katniss is too empty to cry. It feels like it would snap her ribs – which wouldn't be too bad, seeing that her heart is already broken too.

Katniss puts her arms carefully around her mother, the same way someone might hold a paper statue.

After what feels like hours, they must go to say their goodbyes to the youngest of the Everdeen clan. Her mother gives Katniss another dose of her herbal tea and helps her towards the designated building, the pair of them hobbling weakly, their faces tear-tracked, clearing little rivulets of their skin from coal.

They are ushered into a room by two Peacekeepers. Katniss's eyes are instantly drawn to Prim, sitting on a velvet couch. She looks so small and frail, tugging nervously at her immaculate dress.

It's easy to tell that she's been trying not to cry and put on a brave face – it is practically a mirror of Katniss at that age.

Katniss's voice is raspy and it hurts to speak, but she doesn't care. "I'm so sorry, Prim, this is my fault and Ishould'vehelped –" Katniss's words blend together and her throat closes up, refusing to let her abuse her voice any more.

Primrose comforts her – how wrong is that? Primrose is the one dying, _not_ Katniss. "This wasn't your fault," she says. "I still love you. You still love me. That's what counts."

_Love _is what counts? What a joke. Prim's dead and breathing, and no love will ever make that better. Katniss ignores Prim's invalid argument. "If I was there," she pauses, regaining her breath. "I could've volunteered –" She cuts off.

This. Is. Her. Fault.

Primrose shakes her head. "Well, nothing we can do. Besides, you've got a place here in Twelve. Tonnes of people here count on you to get food into our District. Think of Gale's family when he leaves for the mines."

Katniss may be more needed, but Prim will certainly be more missed. They both know it. It hangs in their silence and ripples in the air. Katniss tries to speak, but her throat is closing up.

There are no promises to come back home. No reassurances, no crazy plans of survival. They say their goodbyes and final farewells, because they all know that this is the end of their family. It's a joke to think that the last two Everdeens could ever be functional together and alone.

.

Waiting for the Games to begin is the worst part of it all – well, at the beginning it is. Seeing Prim die on national television is far worse, but for now waiting is the worst agony Katniss has ever felt. There's a period of silence when all the screens of Panem simply replay the reapings while the tributes get transported to the Capitol to become pretty and false and clean.

It takes Katniss a week to recover to the point where she can go slowly hunting again. She spends the days determined to heal herself, drinking whatever remedies put in front of her. On her first day back in the woods, she collapses after shooting some wild dog. It takes her several minutes before she can move on.

Even though every part of Katniss's world has deteriorated, every star in her sky has gone out, many thing still stay the same. She goes to school. Hunts. Sells her game. Every now and then she gets a tap on the shoulder or a muttered; "I'm sorry" from someone she doesn't quite know.

She pulls herself into her own world, retracting herself from Gale, which is easy since he spends almost all of his time in the mines. She tries to be happy for the relationship flowering between him and Madge, but Katniss just feels empty. Drained of life.

For their brief meetings on Sundays, Gale does try to help her. But she's still reeling from Prim's death sentence, and he may as well try to comfort concrete for all the reaction he gets from her. She hunts for his family too, letting her arrows shoot through the animals and killing them quickly and painlessly, like she hopes Prim will die.

…She hates herself for _hoping_ that her sister will perish quickly. But it's the world they all live in, and no amount of complaining or mourning will change that. Katniss knows this better than anyone else.

She can't think anymore – well, she refuses to, at least. She sweeps through the motions each day while waiting for the Games. Her marks at school rise and her amount of kills get bigger and bigger, and so does her income. Their need for food has dropped by a third, she painfully notes each time they cook up too much food or accidentally lay down an extra plate at their table.

Mrs. Everdeen does the same as her daughter, throwing herself into work. The pair hardly speak to each other because they both know there's nothing to hold their family together anymore. They just try to keep out of each other's way and go about their lives, knowing that they're not living at all.

Eventually, it is time for the opening ceremony. Crowds gather anxiously around screens, waiting to see what ridiculous things their tributes will wear this year. Katniss is sort of excited to see Prim again, alive and safe for now, but also terrified of what the Capitol might've done to her.

Katniss glances at her mother sitting next to her. They're in an auditorium filled with tired District people shooting piteous glances at the pair, all thinking; _I'm glad that's not us._

Katniss doesn't blame them one bit. They've got good sense.

The speeches are made. The chariots make their rounds. The tributes blur before Katniss's eyes in a mass of already-done outfits and traditions, and soon it's District 12's turn.

She holds her breath. How much would the Capitol have changed her little Primrose? Would she even recognise her sister?

The pair soar onto the screen, cutting through the dark in a blaze. All Panem sees is fire. Katniss's first reaction is to scream and tell them to put Prim out, but she quickly realises that she's is just fine under her sparks.

The blonde boy – who is Peeta Mellark, she finds out from the caption on the screen – steadies Prim on the chariot when she stumbles. She smiles gratefully at the boy and Katniss thinks that they could be siblings, with their blonde hair and pretty blue eyes. Prim doesn't look anxious, just innocent and sweet and glowing. For a moment, the whole charade looks innocent, like any bright sparkly parade.

Katniss mentally kicks herself. They're lining up the dead underneath the pretty dresses and painted makeup.

The interviews drag by. Prim's interview is smooth, soft and pretty, and some of the Capitol people wipe away tears. No-one likes tribute dead from the start, and Prim is sure to be one of those. Maybe she'll get some sponsors out of pity. Or maybe no-one will bet on her at all, which is the most likely situation. Katniss can't crush that tiny hope inside of her, though. That tiny seed of light says that as long as Prim is still alive, things will be more or less bearable.

Prim talks about her nervousness for the Games, as well as her life back home. Katniss wants to break at the mentions of her and life in District 12, because every word Prim says is embedded with the thought of never coming back.

She's in the Capitol. In the Games. She's about to die.

Katniss leaves the screening room before the last interview is done. Peacekeepers assault her and she hisses at them, clawing. They drag her out onto the street and beat her somewhat gently, probably out of pity. She'll only be bruised and slightly bloody in the morning.

She doesn't care as she pushes herself off the gravel and hobbles home. The pain actually feels kind of nice. It distracts her.

If she had stayed, she would've heard Peeta Mellark's words about his fellow District 12 tribute. "If it comes down to Primrose or me, it'll be her. She has a lot of people that care for her back home, and I want to make sure she gets back to them safely."

If sending Prim back in a white coffin is a 'safe' return, then Peeta would live out his wish.

.:o:.

The day the Games start is the day Katniss is sure to watch her sister die in the name of entertainment.

She reckons that the bloodbath would be the safest way to go out; they're quick deaths.

The canons go off and Prim runs like she is being chased by hell – which would be true if any of the other tributes paid attention to her – and disappears into the forest before most of the tributes leave their plates. Her speed was one of Prim's few talents that would help her in the arena.

Katniss deflates. If a Career finds her now, her death will be slow. Despite that, a small part of her is relieved, that crazy part of her mind that's irrational and stupid and breeds hope.

Katniss watches eleven people die. Some are stabbed, others torn, sliced, ripped. There was one particularly creative death involving two bodies and the Cornucopia, but Katniss hardly sees it.

Prim all but disappears from Panem's view as the days tick on. She survives on her knowledge of plants and ability to stay hidden.

In the first week, her only encounter is one with a boy called Thresh. He finds her under a bush, looking angry.

"Children don't deserve to die in the Games," he tells her, looking disgusted. "Next time we meet, Twelve, I promise to give you a swift death. But I hope I won't be the one who has to do it."

Prim scurries off and Thresh heads back into his grasslands. After that, Prim's camera-time is limited to brief flashes in overviews just to reassure Panem that there's one more obstacle that needs to be taken care of.

The Mellark boy receives a lot more attention from the cameras. He originally paired up with the Career team, the only one wasn't spectacularly bloodthirsty. On day three, he managed to kill three of them using a rotten tree trunk. A voice-over remarks dryly; "Watch out, Panem, it seems we have a potential Victor that uses nothing but his wits, and apparently, balls carved from granite."

Katniss hopes Peeta doesn't win. She wants him _dead_. She wants every single tribute dead except for Prim.

Does that make her a bad person? Most likely.

The Games drag for another week, with the Mellark boy nursing a knife-wound near a river and Prim avoiding pretty much as many people as possible.

Their paths eventually meet. She stumbles across him while looking for food, while he's hidden in mud. They exchange some friendly banter, their conversation easy and light in front of the cameras. They smile without joy and laugh dryly while she helps him treat his wound. She does far better of a job that what Katniss would ever be capable of.

She helps him hobble into a nearby cave and starts with the more delicate procedures of cleaning out the wound properly. While she works, Peeta tells the story about Katniss and the bread. Prim's eyes shine.

He then confesses his love to Katniss.

The girl he loves in Twelve sits in her seat, reeling from shock. She dismisses it as a lie. Why else would he tell Panem something so personal? It's probably some survival tactic.

**.**

Two weeks go by, achingly slow. More and more people die. The pair of them befriend Rue before a spear rips through her too-young body.

They have a two-person funeral for her. Katniss cries quietly to herself, wondering if that would be Prim's fate.

Eventually, they're down to the final three. Foxface, Prim and Peeta. Katniss has already forgotten the names of the dead tributes.

Katniss starts to hope weakly. Actually, it's a roaring sensation that she tries to ignore, but some part of her believes that this Game might not be so bad after all.

There's a feast, one made to drive the remaining tributes together. Before they leave, the pair gather some food from nearby bushes. Katniss guesses that they're genetically engineered to spawn multiple types of berries, since Peeta collects a handful that ranges from dark blue to bright red.

He doesn't eat any of the few he can find, but gives them to Prim instead. She takes them happily and chews them, offering the rest to Peeta.

Before she can even uncurl her fingers, she drops dead.

Katniss can't scream.

The berry-juice looks like blood. She feels sick.

...That's a lie. She can't feel anything, except for the funny feeling in her chest that's stopping her from breathing.


	2. Part 2

**Part 2**

**.**

Peeta goes to the feast anyways, and for the first time he has a the determined look of a survivor in his eyes. He's struggling to process Prim's death and just wants this to end, he wants to go home.

The feast involves a table laden with food, different bottles of medicine laced between the lavish meals.

He spies the girl from the other side of the forest, and he steps out. No-use in hiding.

They banter a bit. Peeta congratulates her on hiding. He can see the fear in her eyes – she thinks he intentionally murdered Prim.

There's a minor scuffle. He manages to pin her down, putting his hands around her throat. Canons go off in minutes.

He lets her go, looking at her glassy eyes. He gently closes them both and folds her arms over her chest.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "You didn't deserve to die."

Panem doesn't hear his words. Of course they weren't aired.

**.**

Peeta hates himself for what he has done. His interviews drag on forever while Caesar asks him stupid, infernal questions.

"Do you think you won over Prim's sister – Katniss Everdeen – during these Games?"

He frowns in confusion. "I killed her sister. I'd be lucky if she doesn't put an arrow through my chest when I get off the train."

Caesar laughs, as if the world is fine. But Peeta isn't lying – he actually has been seriously considering the possibility that he might get slaughtered by Katniss.

"How on earth could she deny a lovely, handsome Victor like yourself?"

He decides to be honest. "Well, she didn't notice me before I was reaped, so I don't think that much would change."

"And what are you going to do with your well-earned riches?" Caesar asks, changing the subject before Peeta the topic can move into darker grounds.

_Well-earned? _"I'll...probably put it back into the community. Twelve's economy could do with a little stimulation. Haven't really thought about it, to be honest." He's been too busy thinking about Katniss, and the fact that it'll be impossible to be so much as her friend at this point. She's probably imagining putting needles into his eyes as she's watching this.

Caesar looks down onto his card, the one with the standard set of questions they ask every Victor. "If you didn't win, who would you want to be crowned Victor?"

He tries not to be offended by how obvious the answer is. It's a standard question to be asked in the Victor's first interview. "Prim. Or Rue. Neither of the deserved to die."

_None of them did. Not in seventy years of this, did anyone deserve it. _

Caesar, to his credit, looks heartbroken at the information. "You did what you could," he murmurs, and Peeta knows he truly means it. For that second, what he was saying wasn't for the people viewing from their televisions. It was purely a condolence for Peeta.

The rest of the interview passes Peeta by. He doesn't know how he manages to get through it. He feels like he's drowning in the questions and his answers only tug him deeper down. He's suffocating under the weight of his Victory.

When he finally gets on the train, he takes his first breath of air, knowing that things could maybe return to normal again. He wonders if Twelve has changed.

It probably won't. People will still die because of the Capitol's greed. He's going to be the one that is different. His hands will forever be stained by blood and berries.

"You did what you had to do," Haymitch says as Peeta pushes food around on his plate, his appetite lost. "There's nothing that can be done now. Vodka?"

Peeta shakes his head and mumbles an excuse before going to bed. Of course Haymitch would offer his only form of escape; being numb. _Maybe he's onto something_, Peeta thinks dryly as he walks into his room, the same one he had before the Games.

The last time he was in the room, he was a different person entirely. He's a killer now that has seen too much ugly.

He'll never be what he was. Peeta would now – and forever – be a Victor. A murderer. There was no going back to being a baker boy.

He doesn't get changed into night clothes. He just falls onto his bed and studies his perfect white ceiling for hours, looking for a single crack.

He doesn't find one.

He eventually falls asleep from exhaustion. He wakes up, pictures of Prim flashing before his eyes. His nightmares are fulled with dead roses and the moment of terror when he closed his fingers around Foxface's neck, not caring about her fate.

When they finally get to the District, Peeta doesn't know what a peaceful night's sleep is. There are purple rings under his eyes, like ugly bruises where the horrors of his own mind punched him. (Hard.)

When his train gets home, there's no welcoming committee, the platform is empty.

Effie groans and complains about scheduling errors and totters off, most likely to go complain to someone.

Peeta's not upset that they arrived in the morning, really. He's sick of people. Most of the people of Twelve are at the mines, school, or other work. He leaves quickly and makes his way home, not wanting to see the look of hatred on his people's faces when they stare into the eyes of a monster.

The weather is cool, falling into the first tentative signs of autumn. There's a bite in the air that wasn't there before he left.

He keeps his head ducked as he walks down the abandoned streets. Few people are about, and no-one glances at him. Their Victor – glorified murderer – was only supposed to arrive tomorrow. He ducks his head so that no-one would see his face.

He doesn't know which street he is walking down when glances up for a second and spots the familiar twist of brown hair. He wants to run away, but she turns and spots him.

Her eyebrows shoot up, the surprise not reaching her eyes – they look as lost as he feels. The line of her mouth hardens. She gives him a long look, as if waiting for green tentacles to burst from his chest.

"Nightlock," she says.

"What?" Of all the things he imagined Katniss would say...

"The bright red berries. The ones you picked three of in that mixed bush. It's called nightlock."

There's a moment of silence. It drags and Peeta wants to fill it with sound of Katniss's voice.

"It was an interesting strategy, using the whole 'in love with tribute's sister' thing to gain supporters." She says without emotion, breaking their silence.

_It wasn't a strategy_. "Yeah, Prim mentioned you to Haymitch and he thought it would be a good idea." There is no need to make things even more complicated for the ashen girl trying to keep her pieces together.

She flinches at her name. "Why did you kill Foxface?" She asks. "I thought you would've been too noble to kill off someone that wasn't using brute strength to win."

"Foxface?"

"The one you strangled."

Peeta flinches. If he didn't have the physical advantage, she would've been sure to win.

"Why did you kill her?" She asks again. "You seemed so...opposed to winning an unfair fight."

He looks down. He can't bring himself to say that once Prim died, the only thing he wanted was to get home to apologise to Katniss personally.

When he had put his hands around her throat, he'd been too numb, too desensitised against death, to care. He was half-delirious with exhaustion at the time.

"I was...too close to coming back home," he replies lamely. "I had to."

He could never say the real reason.

She looks at him again, as if trying to find a physical mark for Victor.

"Why aren't you in school?" He asks, realising it's a Tuesday.

"I took the day off. A tribute's family can do that after a death."

Again, he wants to kick himself. How could he mess up his first real conversation with Katniss Everdeen so epically?

She turns away from and leaves, braid swinging.

She's gone before he can sorry for everything he's done.

.

A week passes. Peeta goes back to school, looking for something to fill his hours. He sees her as they're leaving the grounds, running to catch up with her.

"Hey," he says once they're close enough to each other to talk.

She casts a cautious glance at him. "Hi."

He falls into step with her.

"What do you want?" she asks abruptly.

He bites his lip. "Can I show you my paintings? Of the Games... and stuff." It's a strange request, but he doesn't care. He's alone, afraid and cursed. He needs someone to breathe all the cold, extra oxygen his Victor's walls seems to leak.

"No." she replies, looking down at her feet. He knows what she's thinking. _You killed her, you bastard. You killed my little girl. _

"Katniss," he relishes in saying her name. It's the first time he's ever said it to address her, and it's the first weak ray of happiness he's felt since Prim died. "I need this, and I think you do too. We're both suffering, so we might as well try and fix each other a bit than do it alone. What's the worst that could happen?"

She doesn't respond. Her eyes are hard and she looks both old and young, like a scared child that's seen far too much evil. Which, he realises, is entirely true.

"I'm making cheesebuns this afternoon." He tries to coax her, using information about Katniss's favourite buns hat Prim had mentioned on the train ride to the Capitol.

Her face softens a bit at the bribery. "Fine. But only for a few minutes."

It's a start.

They walk to his house in silence, passing by people giving them surprised stares. _The Victor with the Tribute's sister? The killer and the one left behind to pick up the pieces? _

Peeta decides to ignore them.

Once they finally arrive, he unlocks the door and stands back, letting her go in first. He feels a bit naked and very ashamed as she looks around at the luxury he's forced to live in.

"This was supposed to be your house," he says. "Your house with your sister and family. For almost the whole Games I was hoping that she would win."

Katniss looks at him, her grey eyes fulled with intensity. "No Victor has even been crowned at twelve. I wasn't expecting her to be the first."

"But you hoped."

She looks away, biting her lip. "The paintings. And cheese buns." She forces the topic away from herself. It's much easier that way.

"Upstairs," he says and leads her to his studio, opening the door almost timidly. He watches her face carefully as her eyes sweep the room, biting her lip again. Her face softens at the pictures of sunsets in the arena and its ugly beauty. Then her eyes are move to one of Primrose's face, set against the cave walls. She pales and turns away from the paintings.

"I hate them."

He deflates a bit. "I thought you might say that."

"They're beautiful. But I never want to see her like that." She wraps her arms around herself, as if trying to keep all her guts inside her body. He shakes the image of the tribute from Seven that did the same thing before he died. _This isn't the Games_, he tells himself.

"Like what?"

"As a tribute."

He looks at all his vibrant art, filled with eyes of the dead and places of the dying, and all Peeta can think about is _That was supposed to be me. _

.

Peeta continues his half-life. He paints whenever he can't bear to be left alone with his thoughts, which proves to be quite often. He paints his nightmares in too-vivid imagery. Every brushstroke is a tiny bit of his pain, immortalised forever on canvas.

Two weeks pass. They don't speak.

He idly sketches, including ones of Prim. When Peeta was younger, he used to think that the two Everdeen sisters couldn't look less alike. But once he got to know Prim, he began to see the similarities. They had the same sloped jaw, as well as slender hands – even if Katniss still has blood pumping through hers while Prim's will never move again.

Eventually, he grows sick of staying indoors while only making brief public appearances. He goes outside, right to the fence. He sits down in a grassy patch, staring at the cloudy sky.

He tries not to compare it to Katniss's eyes. _What _a cliché.

"Mellark?"

Peeta lifts his head lazily to see Katniss without any weapons. She's thinner than usual me and her cheekbones jut from her skin like broken glass, there's desperation in her eyes. Her hair isn't shiny. Her skin is flaky and dulled.

This isn't the strong girl he used to know, she looks ready to die in a few weeks.

His request for her to call him Peeta dies in his throat. "What happened!" He asks.

Katniss sighs, looking at the fence he's only a couple of meters away from. "It's electrified all the time."

His heart sinks."So no business, then."

"None at all."

She must be on the brink of starvation, with little to no income or food in her family.

He opens his rucksack. "I just finished making some bread. There's too much for me to finish by myself," he offers. He'd originally thought about giving it to some children three streets down from the Mellark bakery, but Katniss looked like she could use it more.

She sits down next to him and devours the food quickly. Peeta looks at the sky, wondering if she ever thinks about him. He glances over to her, and she's biting her lip. She looks like she's debating whether to say something or not.

"What is it?" he asks.

"It's just...there's nothing for me to do, apart from school." She looks down. "I keep on seeing her everywhere."

Oh. She wants to be busy.

"I can't hunt anymore because of the fence. There's just...so much time."

"I'm planning on making a vegetable patch in the back garden. I might need some help tomorrow with the planting. I'm useless when it comes to that." He offers her a brief escape and a small smile.

A shadow of relief passes on her face. "I could show you how to plant them right."

They both know that he doesn't need help with something that trivial. But she offers help and he agrees. They decide on meeting after school tomorrow.

As she leaves, he wants to kiss her cheek and whisper goodbye in her ear, but he's done that before to a lifeless Everdeen before her body was airlifted from the arena, so he doesn't even dare.

.

They walk home from school together, like any other clichéd couple, barely speaking as they pass run-down houses and looks of recognition flashing past civilians' faces.

Their pace is idle and he sees that Katniss is nervous. She fidgets with her leather bag and he wants to assure her that just because he's killed five people doesn't mean he won't even touch her unless she asks.

Which he secretly hopes she does.

When they get to his house, they take the seeds he bought from the Capitol and they start working the land, making the soil soft and feeding it fertilizer. They only exchange a few words while he watches Katniss get lost in the mechanics of the work, and Peeta tries to stop his mind from going into hyperdrive every time he can feel her body heat.

Katniss tells him about how to space out the plants correctly and how deep they should be. It's all old information to Peeta, but he listens anyway. He enjoys just listening to the sound of her voice.

They plant tomatoes, carrots, potatoes and beans. Cabbage finds its way into his patch too, and Katniss asks why he's making this if he can simply just buy the food.

Peeta shrugs. "It kills time, gives me something to do." Katniss's expression darkens at the word _kill_. "Once everything's ripe, I'm hoping to give the food to Greasy Sae to make some soup to hand out."

Katniss stares. He shrugs.

"I want to make a bakery for everyone too, but I think I should start small," is all he says. "I want to get some medicinal herbs too. We need more of them in Twelve."

They continue to work, becoming silent. It's not uncomfortable and forced, they're just spending time with each other.

The sun is hot, but the breeze is pleasant. Peeta can smell the soil and plants, and if he strains his nose, he can smell the tiniest bit of Katniss.

She's the first one to break the silence. "Do you regret it?"

He blinks in surprise, his hands slipping in the dirt. "Regret what?"

"Being reaped," she says. "Winning." She doesn't look up at him, and Peeta knows it's because she's trying to keep her emotions in check and hidden.

Why did she ask him that now? "No...and yes," he says after a moment's deliberation.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't regret being reaped," he says honestly. "If I hadn't, I would've never gotten to know you – or Prim," he adds hastily, just so it doesn't sound quite so romantic, he didn't want to overwhelm her. "I regret winning. My plan had been to get Prim as far as I could, hopefully getting her back here," he said. "It didn't work so well, I know."

She smiles without her eyes.

"But I'm happy someone from Twelve won," he continues, gently putting a few seeds into the ground. "I can feed so many people know. It feels like it was almost worth it."

She looks worried again and sighs. "It's just that you're so..._good_," she looks embarrassed at her own words.

"What do you mean by that?" he asks, confused. Peeta wasn't good – he killed a lot of people in the arena, including her sister. He's a Victor, and they're some of the worst people in Panem. They're the ones too selfish to give up their lives for people who deserve it more.

Peeta's not good. Nice, maybe. Pleasant.

She blushes again. "It's that you never think of yourself," she said. "You're selfless."

It's the first time he ever heard someone call him that. He was a far cry from selfless, that he knew.

Under his mother's words, he learned very quickly that he wasn't worth much – being the youngest, he was also the mistake. The boy that wasn't supposed to be born. Since he wasn't important himself, the least he could do was make other people's live better.

It's not that he does it so that he can be considerate towards others, he does it because he doesn't think enough of himself to put him first.

"Well, if we all put other people first, the world would be a much better place," he says diplomatically. She doesn't need to know about what he thought about himself just yet.

She smiles. "I guess you're right. Too bad no-one in the Capitol has that way of thinking."

"Maybe I'll convince a few people there to try it out sometime," he says, trying to imagine someone saying about how much they care about people in the Capitol accent. Or a Capitolite protesting the Games. It was a ridiculous thought.

They continue to dig and plant.

Sometimes their dirt-stained hands brush, and Peeta has to resist the urge to smile every time.

Once they're done, they stand up – Katniss rising first – to admire their handiwork.

"You know, I never really appreciated how things could be grown. I guess my whole life has just been plucking up what nature provided."

"Yeah. It's hard to get nature grow what we want without asking nicely," he says, his voice light. "I think I'm going to wash off. I want to make some buns tonight for the Rawling family."

Katniss looks down at her hands. "The Rawling family is that one with the single mother and four kids?"

Peeta nods. "Saw them at the market today, they look like they could use a meal." He wasn't kidding. Their Seam-eyes looked hollow and helpless, their bones jutting out from their skin. It looked as if they hadn't eaten for several weeks. As far as families went in Twelve, the Rawlings were highly pitied. There used to be a family of nine several years ago.

Eventually, they find themselves in the kitchen. Peeta bakes and Katniss eats an apple. He tells her of his plans to plant flowers along his garden and plant more vegetable patches in the rest of the Village's lawns. Katniss listens as he pulls out a whole chicken from his fridge and offers her a plate. She stares in wonder at the huge bird.

"It's good," he promises.

She cuts off a leg and eats it carefully, trying her best not to mess on his perfect counter.

When she's halfway done, she asks the question. "What was it like?"

He bites his lip and sits down on the chair across the counter from her. "Hell." he says truthfully.

She picks at her chicken bone and he slices himself a piece.

"She loved you, you know. She loved you a lot."

Katniss looks up. She seems suddenly very tired. "I know she did. And it makes it worse that she never blamed me."

"Well, it wasn't your fault." he says, trying to be consoling. "It's the Capitol's."

Katniss's hand tightens into a fist over her food. "If I'd been at the reaping, I could've volunteered."

"The odds were in her favour, and you were sick," Peeta reassures. "There's no use in thinking about all the 'what if's."

She excuses herself hastily and leaves, her plate only left with chicken bones.


	3. Part 3

**A/N: So, this is the final chapter. I hope you've enjoyed. :) Feel free to drop a review.**

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><p><strong>Part 3 <strong>

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It feels strange for Katniss to not be covered in grime most of the time – she used to often go to the lake when she wanted to scrub herself down properly, with the trees as her only audience. She didn't invite Gale along to those sessions – her privacy was precious. She treasured the few times she could indulge in it.

But since she had started visiting Peeta, her general cleanliness had shot up. Peeta had a huge shower in his Victor's house, one of the only of its kind within the District. Sometimes it'd take her by surprise when she ran a hand through her hair, expecting there to be tangled knots and snarls, or when she'd look down a her fingers and raise her eyebrows at the lack of dirt under her nails.

Katniss's hair is damp, making her wet shirt stick to her back unpleasantly. She and Peeta are sitting on his couch together, only a few inches apart. The fireplace is glowing with flames.

He reaches over to put down his mug of emptied coffee onto the side-table. His sleeve pulls up and she notices a thin scar running down the wrist. She'd seen it in the Games.

"What happened there?" she asks, her voice curious. Without thinking, she reaches up and touches it lightly.

"Oh, that," he says, retracting his hand back to his own lap. "I got burned by the stove. It used to be a lot bigger, but some people in the Capitol decided to 'beautify' my scars. They didn't want to get rid of them entirely, though. This one stayed because it was so distinctive during the Games."

"Oh," she says, unsure of what else she could tell him. "How big did it used to be?"

He holds his fingers about an inch and a half apart. "About this wide," he says. "It only lost about half an inch on each side, though."

Katniss winces. Burn wounds had to be some of the worst. She'd rather take an arrow to the side than have any severe burn injuries. Katniss liked to keep any of her body parts away from fires.

"Did they get rid of a lot of scars?" Katniss asks.

"I had a big ugly one on my shoulder, from when my mom hit me with the edge of a cooling rack," he says. "It's completely gone now."

Katniss nods, feeling pained. If there was one thing she knew she couldn't complain about, it was having a loving family. Even though she grew up in poverty, she lived in a house where she didn't have to constantly be worried about the threat coming from her own family members.

Even though Peeta probably only skipped a few meals, he never knew what it was like to have a mother that cared for him. Even though Mrs Everdeen had been misguided, she had never been hostile.

"How often did she hit you?" She asks, her voice not the far above a whisper. Somehow, they're sitting even closer together.

He shrugs. "Only if I messed up something," he replies honestly. "She pretty much stopped once I was taller than her."

The horror must have shown on her face.

"It's okay," he reassures. "It wasn't that bad."

She feels even worse. "You're not supposed to be the one comforting _me_," she says, her voice thick. "I'm not the one telling the painful back-story."

"Well, I got over it a few years ago. This is news to you." He replies softly, grabbing her hand. "It's no big deal, really."

Katniss slides down, sinking into the dent that Peeta's stocky body makes in the couch. They're touching now; she's surprised at how warm he is. Katniss can't really remember the last time she had actually been this close to someone. She twists around and without even thinking, she presses her lips lightly against his. His body stiffens in surprise, but he relaxes after a few uncertain seconds.

It's not a passionate kiss. There's no fire, no steam. It's not one fueled by desire. It's a comfort to them both.

She pulls away quickly afterwards, embarrassed, her hand resting on the spot where the collar of his shirt ends. She can feel the quick thudding of his heart.

He grins lightly. "If I knew I was going to get that if I told you, I would've done it weeks ago."

She's smiling now. It's a weak one, but it's genuine.

Moments pass. Neither of them need to fill the silence. After a while, Katniss gets tired of holding her neck at an awkward angle. She rests her head on his chest, realising for the first time how hard it is. She wonders how often he lifts heavy loads of flour.

Ten minutes go by.

Twenty.

She still must ask the question, though.

"Tell me what it was like," she says as she adjusts herself, snuggling deeper into his chest. She'd seen the story on TV in intimate detail, along with narration and in-between specials where Capitolite people would discuss the surviving tributes.

Peeta breathes in deeply. "It'll take hours to tell you everything," he says honestly.

"We have time."

They're some of the few that do. All of the other tributes lost all of theirs.

He shifts slightly, putting his one arm on the back of the couch, allowing Katniss to be more comfortable.

"The scariest part was the beginning, waiting for the Games to begin. You've got no idea what type of environment you're going to end up in, you have no idea who to watch out for. The whole time while rising up towards the tribute plates, all I could think about was; '_How quickly will I die_?'" He sighs, his chest deflating under Katniss.

"The rest of the Games weren't as scary, to be honest. I was confident I was going to die, so I wasn't really that terrified of every moment, trying to fight it...the worst was watching others get killed."

Katniss's grip on his shirt tightens. "Did you ever think that you would come back?"

He pauses. "Only once Prim...you know."

"You can say it," Katniss replies. "She _died_. No-one says that to me. It's always the _tragedy_ or _loss_. No-one says what it is." She feels the reality sink in on her all over again.

_Dead. _

It's been two months. Katniss hid most of her pain from Peeta, crying alone. They hadn't been all that close until recently. But now, for the first time, she felt tears brimming in front of him.

The idea of him seeing her cry isn't all that scary. But her tears don't fall, not yet.

He notices her turmoil. "The arena smelled of pine," he continues, trying to distract her. "In the mornings, the air was always heavy with dew and moisture. It always cleared my head. The weirdest thing was waking up and only seeing trees and sky above. Then my brain would go; _Oh yeah, you're in the Games_." His grip tightens slightly over her shoulders. "Every morning, I'd have that half-second just after I woke up that I didn't know where I was...it was the best moment of every day."

He continues to tell her about the Games and the people, explaining the less important things about the arena that no-one apart from the people that were there knew. How they found food. A conversation hat never got aired. The terror of waking up with a knife against his throat.

Katniss, in turn, tells Peeta what Prim used to be like before he knew her.

"She had a cat; Buttercup," Katniss says, feeling her body begin to shake the slightest. She hates that feeling of being weak, it terrifies her. She is supposed to be strong and steady and secure, not this half-shade of a woman that _cries_.

Her throat closes up, but she battles on.

"It's the ugliest cat you've ever seen," she tells him as he rubs soothing circles on her arm, trailing old scars. "He's been hissing at me ever since Prim left. And at night, when we're all pretending to sleep, he sits on Prim's part of the bed and starts meowing desperately. It's the worst sound in the world."

When she starts to tremble, he puts his arms around her gently, as if scared to break her.

He doesn't talk. Peeta doesn't assure her that things will be okay, because of course, it won't.

Prim's dead.

Katniss isn't much of a crier. Her sobs are dry, quiet as possible She shakes more than anything else.

They sit together, just staring at the fire.

"I would've died for her, you know," he says after a while of silence. "If we were the top two, I would've killed myself without a second thought."

"Thank you," she says, putting all the gratitude she can muster into those two words. It's not just a simple takes a lot for Katniss to thank someone.

They both talk about a bunch of silly things, not really focusing on their numerous problems. They're too broken anyway to even know _where_ to start fixing. It's easier to talk about how things used to be before the Games, or about Prim or something meaningless.

It helps, though. They pour their pieces of pain into each other, and in that way, they make it less. Not by much, but it does help.

They tell each other about their families. Peeta explains how his father didn't want to live in something that the Capitol built, and that it was usually regarded as improper for a family to move into a Victor's house.

By the time it's light outside, they begin to doze off. Right before Katniss drops off, she asks a question.

"You weren't lying back in the arena, when you were telling Prim about me." _And what you felt. _She doesn't doubt that the statement is true, but she just needs the confirmation.

He runs his hand down her braid. "Never."

.

Things change.

People around her forget. The piteous glances Katniss receives are becoming less and less, and more and more people are knowing her as the girl with the Victor. It's not a bad title, Katniss doesn't mind it. She'd rather be known as the girl with the Victor than the girl with the dead sister. It's much easier.

He hushed questions Peeta receives about arena and killing become less and less frequent. Every time he just smiles sadly and says; "You'll never find out unless you're in there yourself, and I hope you'll never have to."

Peeta paints. Sometimes Katniss would sit by the baker, her arms wrapped around him, resting her head on his shoulder and looking at his work. She usually just watches as colours bloom to life on his white canvas, capturing entire worlds in pigments and brushstrokes.

Once or twice he paints her, making her sit in a chair in his studio.

"Why would you want to paint me?" She asks when he puts her down in the chair and tries to get all the angles right.

"I wanted something truly beautiful in my studio," he says honestly. "I don't want everything in here to be a reminder of the Games."

So Katniss lets herself be painted.

Sometimes, she describes to him how Prim looked when milking Buttercup or fixing a tear in her dress or with her face pressed up against the bakery's glass windows. He paints Prim too, just like the way Katniss describes her to look like at that point.

Disaster still often strikes. Peeta is sold on his Victory tour. The quarter Quell rolls around and Peeta is threatened to go in again, but Haymitch volunteers. There's a full-scale reaping held to find a female tribute.

But there are bright things. Their vegetable patches feeds children almost daily. Roses sprout in their gardens and Peeta is allowed to wrap his arms around Katniss without her pulling into herself.

There are good things and bad things, all mixed together. They're both chopped up into little bits and spun around and pushed together and sit side-by-side. But the bad things doesn't make the good any worse, and the good doesn't make the bad better.

It's not a happy ending. It's not a sad one. It's one with both, and maybe that makes the pair of them stronger.

**-FIN- **


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